I am State Rep. Matt Lesser (D-Middletown), and I am introducing legislation to crack down on big box stores who are forcing their employees to work on Thanksgiving. These Thanksgiving Turkeys: WalMart, Macy's, Target, Staples and many other companies each year are forcing their workers to miss Thanksgiving with their families, often with no extra pay. Working Black Friday is bad enough! We need legislation to give workers the freedom to stay home with their families on Thanksgiving, or else give them triple pay if they have to come in to work. Sign this petition and join me in urging the Connecticut legislature and Governor Malloy to take action to protect Thanksgiving and defend real family values.

After not being admitted to a Mental Health facility due to the lack of an available bed, Gus Deeds went on to try and kill his father State Senator Creigh Deeds before taking his own life. Senator Deeds has said “I hope the justice we can get for my son is to force change in the delivery system for mental-health services.” Please stand with me, Senator Deeds and all of those that have been affected by mental illness in urging the Virginia State Legislature to act now. None of us are immune from the threat of mental illness.

Newspapers need to stop publishing letters that deny climate change.

Newspapers need to stop publishing letters that deny climate change.

Andy Craig is running the school district into the ground - financially, policy wise, personnel wise, and instructionally, as well as denying bus transportation to families of all races. House values will plummet if the bus transportation is discontinued.

On Monday night Chris Christie laid out the centerpiece of his second term agenda: another expensive tax cut for New Jersey’s top 1%. Sounding more like someone running for the Iowa Republican caucus than the Governor of a blue state, Christie demanded legislators make even deeper cuts to public investments like education and public safety to make way for his tax cut for the rich. Over the last four years Governor Christie has cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy and paid for it with billions in cuts to our schools and communities, green jobs programs and scholarships for college students. Passing Christie’s ridiculous tax cut would mean even deeper job-killing cuts, and as much as 40% of it would go to New Jersey’s richest 1%. We need to remind our legislators that they were elected to stand strong against Christie’s worst impulses and fight for policies that will benefit working families rather than the wealthy, and we need to do it now.

Since October, when the District announced that the Amherst Regional Public Schools would restrict peanuts and tree nuts, there has been a public debate about the decision. The arguments against this approach have ranged from the shortsighted and insensitive to the inaccurate and outright dangerous. The new practice does not deny anyone of their right to consume nuts in their daily life. It is a restriction on having them in the public schools. We are talking about a six and a half hour day without nut products, not an entire diet. There are plenty of protein sources and nut alternatives available to families. The district has expressed a willingness to work with people who have a significant medical issue that requires an alternate plan. Though there are other medical issues that may require accommodations, there are not other medical issues that could kill a child within minutes and for which there is a simple solution to greatly minimize that risk. While this new practice may require some getting used to, the inconvenience to families and children is minor when weighed alongside the positive impact of this practice on the safety and well-being of children with life-threatening nut allergies. A lot has been said about the economic hardship of purchasing nut butter substitutes to make up for the loss of the "healthy protein source" of peanut butter. While peanut butter alternatives such as Sunbutter and WowButter are more expensive than the cheapest peanut butter brands that include an unhealthy combination of oils and sugars, the truly healthy peanut butter varieties are just as expensive as peanut butter alternatives. There are also countless protein sources aside from nut substitutes. For families experiencing a significant financial challenge there is subsidized lunch, where the cafeterias have been serving nut butter alternatives for years. Attempting to make this a conversation about class is manipulative and diversionary. Some people feel that the whole focus of this issue should be keeping allergic children away from allergens by separating them from peers who consume nuts at school. In fact, a food allergy is a disability under the Americans With Disabilities Act and the recommendation is to manage the disability without exclusion or segregation. There is a significant social and emotional component to living with food allergies and it impacts a child's safety as they grow into an age where they manage their own allergy. This new practice nurtures and protects the whole child. It teaches all of our children an important lesson about taking care of one another and inclusion. There are challenges in this, but there are also gains. Some people argue that children with food allergies should not have the benefit of this accommodation because they should learn to live in the "Real World." In the "Real World" we protect children, and some children need more protection than others. Crossing guards and booster seats and movie ratings are all part of the "Real World." The world is a much scarier place for children with life-threatening allergies. They will spend their whole lives negotiating the challenges associated with their disability. Affording them the chance to learn in an environment where they are not quite as fearful seems like a reasonable accommodation. Perhaps the most outrageous suggestion is the one that parents will be lulled into a state of complacency and our children will become less safe as a result. The allergen is the threat. Greatly reducing it will greatly reduce the threat. Parents of allergic children are painfully aware that nothing will ever eliminate the threat. To suggest that we could ever stop worrying about that is enormously insensitive. To use a fabricated concern for the safety of food allergic children in an effort to diminish a practice that would help them is disingenuous. I am the mother of a child with a life threatening nut allergy. I know why this issue feels so important to me. What I cannot understand is why anyone whose child's life is not in danger would take the time to fight against a practice that represents great progress toward safety and inclusion for a hundred children in our district. Each of those children is a human being and a life. I started this petition because in the process of public debate some of us seem to have forgotten that.

I live among many homeless in downtown Seattle-poets, artists, vets, and those less known. Many are friends. ER is a rescue for them but at a terrible cost to their continued health and to the economy. They are not "the poor" or any other "category". There are us!

Verizon's corporate leadership is interested in one thing only - lining their own pockets and those of their Wall Street investors. Their lack of commitment to building FiOS in Upstate cities like Buffalo and Syracuse and their subsequent worker layoffs hurt our local communities. Tell Verizon STOP THE LAY OFFS AND INVEST IN UPSTATE!

We the undersigned, wish to have Domanick Hunter Law returned home and placed into the care of his Aunt Tammy and Uncle Jim Shultz. Domanick was taken from his home on August 1,2013 and we have not be able to talk to him and see him since this date. We are worried about what this is all doing to him. His whole family loves and misses him immensely and want him home where he belongs. We all agree that Tammy and Jim Shultz are good people with good values and we know that they will see that he gets the best care and love he possibly can. His family is behind them and supporting them every step of the way as well. Please help bring Domanick home. The Holidays ,or any days, are not the same without him.

We can end student loans. I have an awful amount of student loan debt and I am angry that student loan debt keeps growing for current students and folks in repayment. I don't want any other student to ever experience the problem's I've had with high student loan debt. It's time that banks quit profiting from students quest for high education. It's time for college tuition to quit being a barrier for low and middle income students. Oregon(1) has already shown that there is another way to pay for college. Instead of colleges setting tuition, all alumni should pay a small portion of income for 15 years to enable the next generation of students to attend college. Pay 5% for 15 years- all the money back to your school, none of it to the banks. If Oregonians can pay it forward, why can't every college seeking student also pay it forward? Let' s use next years Higher Education Reauthorization Act to end student loans once and for all. Sen. Harkin (IA) is the Chair of the Senate's Health,Education,Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee and has the power to include Pay It Forward as part of this bill. Tell Sen. Harkin to help us end student loans in 2014. We can end student loans. Really, we can end student loans. Let's end student loans. (1) http://abcnews.go.com/Business/oregon-legislature-approves-tuition-free-college-pilot-program/story?id=19577994

To give respect and appreciation to those who served in Vietnam, and those who are suffering and have died from this Chemical